A Hexie Turtle Valentine

Hello Everyone!

We’re the Hexie Turtles! And we’re here to tell you about what we did to get ready for Valentine’s Day.

Well… actually I’m going to tell the story because Sue made me first, so that makes me the oldest. Lanie is next oldest. She’s my BFF. And then Rexie is youngest. He’s my other BFF.

Sue was super busy this week working on things at the sewing machine. We get a bird’s eye view of everything she does from up on the sewing room bookshelf where we live.

Just look at those cool chef hats Sue made for us!

And if she made us chef hats, you know that means we’re going to be doing something in the kitchen.

In the after Christmas sales, Sue bought a set of cookie cutters for making Linzer Cookies. Yesterday, she looked through all her cookbooks (she has an entire cupboard of cookbooks) but couldn’t find any recipes for Linzer Cookies. So she googled it.

We wanted to see how she did each step, so she measured everything out into bowls.

Then she got out the old cake taker so that we could sit up high and watch her mix everything together.

First, she creamed the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla in a big bowl.

Then she mixed the spices, salt and baking powder into the flour. After that she added the ground almonds.

While she was mixing the first half of the flour mixture into the creamed butter mixture…

Rexie’s hat fell off!!

He said it was because I pushed him but I didn’t, honest!

I was just trying to get a closer look at what Sue was doing.

And then Sue did something really funny.

The spoon wasn’t getting everything mixed together, so she stuck her hand in the bowl and starting working the flour into the dough.

Sue said that sometimes hands are the best tools for the job.

When it was all mixed together and you couldn’t see anymore flour, she divided the dough in half and wrapped it in plastic.

Dave commented that she couldn’t really say that she’d divided them in half because one was bigger than the other.

Sue told him not to be a smart aleck. That made us giggle!

And then Sue told us that the dough had to chill in the fridge for 2 hours.

Do you know how long 2 hours is??

It’s 120 minutes!

What were we going to do for that many minutes?

But Dave and Sue had already planned for that.

When Sue and Dave were little like us…

Yes, I know it’s hard to believe that they were once little but they say they were so it must be true.

Anyway, they said they used to decorate tissue boxes for their friends to put all their Valentine’s cards in.

You can’t buy turtle sized tissue boxes, so Dave made some for us. He even cut slots to put the cards through.

Then Sue and Dave wrapped them in white printer paper and Sue wrote our names on them.

Then it was time to decorate them. Sue had cut out paper hearts and bought us lots of stickers.

Dave helped Rexie while Sue helped Lanie and me.

Aren’t our Valentine’s boxes pretty!

With the rest of the hearts and stickers, we made Valentine’s cards for each other and all our turtle friends.

Teeheehee… Lanie had a little trouble with her tape.

The timer went off just as Sue finished getting Lanie untaped!

It was finally time to roll out the dough and cut the cookies.

Dave likes rolling and cutting cookies so he took over from Sue.

He showed us a neat way to make sure the the dough gets rolled out to 1/4″ inch thick.

You put a chopstick on either side of the dough. When the rolling pin starts rolling on the chopsticks, the dough is the right thickness.

We each got a turn using the cookie cutter. I got to go first!

The cookie trays are lined with the silpats (<- affiliate link) that Dave bought Sue for Christmas. That keeps the cookies from sticking to the pan.

We wanted to stay and help Dave cutting and baking the cookies but Sue said each batch would take 11 minutes to bake and then they would have to cool before we could put them all together.

They wouldn’t be ready until after naptime!

She carried us upstairs and wrapped us in the quilts she made for us.

When we woke up, the cookies were out of the oven and cool enough for the next step!

Lanie tried to help with the icing sugar sprinkler thingie but she knocked it over and the lid came off.

Icing sugar sure is messy stuff. Sue even got some on us when she was sprinkling it on the cookie tops.

Once all the cookie tops had icing sugar sprinkled on them, it was time to put the cookies together.

Sue spread the bottoms with jam. Then she put a top on each bottom.

Don’t they look yummy!

Sue had another surprise for us.

A tea party!

The cut out hearts were the perfect size for little turtles like us.

Rexie saw Sue dunking her cookie in her tea. (Sue has to be careful not to eat too much gluten but can have the occasional treat.)

Rexie decided to try dunking his cookie.

He said it was really good, so Lanie and I dunked our cookies too.

He was right. That made them really yummy!

Rexie, Lanie and I (and Sue and Dave) hope you had as much fun getting ready for Valentine’s Day as we did!

For the cookie recipe, click on the link below.

Snow Storm Linzer Cookies

Scroll down for a final note from Sue!

Just like on Valentine’s Day when our kids were little, in addition to the cards they made each other, Dave and I had little surprises for Lexie, Rexie and Lanie when they came downstairs this morning.

We made them each a card and a small bundle of candy.

There’s even a new story book for us to read them at bedtime.

More Hexie Turtle stories can be found by clicking on the links below:

The Hexie Turtles’ Snow Adventure

The Hexie Turtle’s Cookie Baking Adventure

Teeny, Tiny Turtle Quilts

The Hexie Turtles’ Christmas Eve

There’s a clue in that last photo to a new Hexie Turtle story that’s in the planning stages.

If you’d like to save A Hexie Turtle Valentine to read to your little ones in the future please click on the Pinterest button underneath this post.

And of course, the Hexie Turtles and I would love it if you share our story on Facebook and Twitter as well. 🙂

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